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The ASO Newsletter - 16th Edition

Thank you for being here and for your interest in research on the Alexander Technique and its teaching.

This 16th edition of the Alexander Studies Online (ASO) newsletter is the first in a series of blogs that focus on the Alexander Technique and music making. This month begins with an introductory video, and a paper by Dr Gabriella Minnes Brandes (CANSTAT, STAT, AMSAT, ATI) that includes three video interviews between Gabriella and Jennifer Condie, a musician and Alexander Technique pupil of Gabriella’s. The abstract of the paper that arose from the research completed by Gaby and Jennifer is linked here. All three video interviews are found within the paper below.

An Introduction: Working with Musicians - The application of the Alexander Technique to music making Part I

“We ourselves are the instrument”: Researching the application of the Alexander Technique when working with musicians

Dr Gabriella Minnes Brandes (CANSTAT, STAT, AMSAT, ATI)

In introducing his technique, FM Alexander said: “We ourselves are the instrument – each one of us is the instrument – by means of which whatever we are going to do is done” (Alexander, 1995 / 1934, p. 170).  Each one of us is an instrument that we “play” throughout our lives, and Alexander Technique provides us with a framework to know how to use ourselves with efficiency, poise and intention.  Similarly, and perhaps even more so, musicians are the instruments that make sound. A piano, guitar, violin, cello or drum does not make sound until a musician utilises them. The ways musicians move and breathe determine the quality of contact between themselves and their instruments, and thus determine the quality of sound that is produced.

Musicians are well versed in analysing how they make music, and they continuously evaluate the quality of sound that they make. They often show intensity and commitment as they seek ways to overcome challenges that arise from many hours of practice, and from the particular pressures of performing in front of an audience. Though musicians are not always aware of the ways in which they use themselves when they play, they know when they are able to achieve what they are aiming for musically. When artists see themselves as the vehicle for their expression, as the instrument through which they express themselves, AT can provide them with specific ways to “tune themselves” as they would tune their instruments creating spaces for new and creative explorations through music making. Alexander teachers are well suited to support musicians in such explorations. 

Over thirty years ago, as part of my AT training I taught a student who was a double-bass jazz musician.  She was interested in taking lessons because of neck pain.  We were both exploring how to apply AT principles to music making, and we realized that with particular attention to the coordination of the head, neck and back, she gained more freedom in her arm movements, her pain diminished and the sound she produced was closer to what she intended.  Now so many years later, I continue to explore the connections between AT and making music and how AT teachers can support musicians using AT as a framework to approach both practice and performance. 

Inviting AT teachers and students to conduct research, calls them to identify a question that matters to them, sets them to choose the appropriate methods of investigation, discern what data to collect and how, and embark on a systematic process of analyzing the data.  The research question can be narrow and specific or broad, and that question will determine the kinds of data collected. The methods vary to fit the question from a survey, to interviews, videotaping, journaling, statistical tools etc. That systematic process of inquiry provides insights into how AT works and how it may serve as the backdrop for a broad range of activities.  

This blog is based on years of working with performers and specifically on the analysis of data from interviews I conducted over a period of two years (around 2010-2012) [1] with twenty musicians who studied with me. At the time of the interviews, some of the participants were finishing their music degrees, others had been professional musicians for many years, and some were both teaching their instrument and performing. In the interviews I asked each of the musicians what brought them to take Alexander lessons, how they understood Alexander principles and applied them in their playing, and if they saw tensions between focusing primarily on music, or having an overarching focus on AT. Ultimately, I was interested in exploring the connections between AT, music making and creativity. I wondered if the structure of AT provided a set of tools for musicians to explore and enhance their creativity.

I transcribed and analyzed the interviews, seeking common threads on the one hand and unique explorations on the other.  The musicians created narratives where they shared their experiences learning and applying AT.  All of the musicians I interviewed started AT lessons looking for solutions to injuries or pain. Only a few were also explicitly seeking to improve their performance. As the musicians’ experience with AT grew, they articulated the explicit connections they saw between AT and music making.

One of the musicians illustrated how he was learning to think in activity. 

At first I thought in a very mechanical way, trying to play guitar with myself in the ‘right position.’ I thought that if I just found the right chair, my use would fall into place. Of course, that did not happen . . . Now I just try to think up while playing and I usually notice positive changes. I try to be aware of the angles in my ankles, knees, and hips and change them as I play. When I ‘check in’ on my use while I am playing and make some adjustments, I notice an increase in the volume of my playing or a change in the tone as I change my use.

The musicians spoke about honing their observation skills, being able to identify their habits, so that they could choose when and how to inhibit them. That moment of inhibition opened the space and possibility to think in activity.  There were many examples of how the application of Alexander principles encouraged an embodied experience of freedom to communicate through music.  Application of AT principles became the approach towards practicing the instruments, as each musician found ways to move away from habitual patterns, attending to the “means-whereby”, not end-gaining, and experimenting with new ideas.  “With the Alexander Technique there is a template of constructive self-education”.

The musicians I interviewed applied Alexander Technique concepts, and developed a language that focused on exploration, inquiry and discovery. Seeking efficiency of use, musicians experimented with creative ways to enhance authentic, artistic expression. One of the musicians noted the improvement of quality of sound: “I can instantly hear the difference in the freedom and flexibility of my tone”.

Musicians spoke about the challenges of applying this framework of AT concepts as they moved from the practice room to performance. “In performance it becomes difficult to think of everything at once”.  Performance required the ability to maintain a unique focus cultivating the ability to be fully present on stage, enhanced by thinking globally and locally, considering physical elements (like the human structure and its coordination in movement) and musical elements. Attending to those aspects invites ways of communication between the artist and the audience through the creation and sharing of sound and vibration to make meaning. Alexander lessons can become the structured and safe space to practice these complex requirements, finding support and breath, being attentive internally and externally to enhance musical expression.  In the words of one of the musicians: “I am the instrument that will vibrate and make a more beautiful sound”.

For this series of blogs, I held conversations with two musicians: Jennifer Condie and Lorna McGhee, both of whom have had many years of lessons in Alexander Technique and were happy to speak with me about their experiences. This month you can listen to three interviews with Jennifer Condie. Jennifer is a piano teacher and pianist, who has a studio with students at different levels from beginner to preparation for university. Her students participate in Royal Conservatory of Music Exams through Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Toronto level. In addition, Jennifer has been working with me on a research project, integrating AT into piano teaching of young students [2]. The March blog will be the interviews with Lorna McGhee.

In the first conversation with Jennifer Condie (below), we speak about her early lessons and their impact on her daily life and on playing the piano.  She speaks about her growing awareness of choices available to her.  She talks about attending to movement in new ways, and having a framework to address pain that may stem from hours of practicing the instrument without attending to the overall coordination.

In the second conversation with Jennifer Condie (below), we speak about how she applied what she learned in her AT lessons into her piano studio.  She shares her thoughts about modelling better use to her students. She illustrates how she teaches her students about the use of arms so that the students are able to play with ease. She describes how she teaches students when they are away from the piano and then they move to the piano, attending to a sequence of directions, paying attention to overall coordination as it pertains to the movements required to play the piano. Jennifer describes how she tailors her instruction to each student and shares some specific examples illustrating how her piano teaching changed as her understanding of AT deepened.

In the third conversation with Jennifer Condie (below), we speak about our research project. We describe the background to the study, the participants, the methods and our findings. We focus initially on the analysis of data from one student. We describe how this student was learning to integrate AT concepts into her piano lessons, and how Jennifer’s attention to the language she used was specific and conscious, integrating AT and piano, and how the student started using that language and developed her own way of expressing how and what she learned.  Then our conversation focuses on our next steps in the research, where we analyze the data from the other piano students, but highlight the conversations the two of us had as we spoke about the data.  We shed a light on the ways in which we speak about the application of AT concepts when working with young piano students, and the ways in which AT teachers support piano teachers in these explorations, through systematic data collection and analysis. We share our findings of what an embodied pedagogy may look like.

In a series of conversations about music, culture and politics, between Edward Said (a professor of English and Comparative Literature and also an amateur pianist) and Daniel Barenboim a music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and General Music Director of the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin and a pianist) (2004), Barenboim speaks about music as fluid, changing and evolving. He suggests that music helps foster contact between people. Edward Said adds that performers act as interpreters, articulating “others'' as they support a voyage to the “other” (p.11).  They both speak about exploration as a goal and about music as a way of becoming, “how you get there and how you leave it and how you make the transition to the next phrase” (p. 21).  They both speak about the unrepeatability of music (p. 22) and the role of silence and sound.  They speak about the courage of making music, transitioning notes from a page to a lived, immediate and transient experience (pp. 47-49).  Alexander Technique shares many of these elements: it is anchored in here-and-now, it provides a framework that is dynamic and serves as a structure to identify blindspots, and make conscious choices. Alexander technique takes into account the whole person, their coordination, habits of thought and movement and encourages moving from the known and familiar to the unknown. Barenboim provides another insight into the connection between the world of music making and AT: “Music is exactly like the human body. The anatomy of music is exactly like that: everything is always related” (2004, p. 114) or as FM Alexander wrote about “thinking in activity” as the act of sending directions: “all together, one after the other” (p. 425).

The role of an Alexander teacher is to support an inquiry, an exploration, rather than a particular end result. The AT teacher encourages students to move beyond what they already know, to embrace mistakes as opportunities to move out of habitual patterns. This reciprocal teacher-student relationship is a nuanced process that calls on both teacher and learner to create bridges between theories and “real life” applications.  Alexander lessons offer a safe, non-judgmental environment for such explorations. FM Alexander saw his work as “re-education.” He offers a paradigm for learning that is psychophysical and engages the whole self of the learner in a lived experience. AT provides a language to discern the embodied experience of artists, performers and audience members alike who participate together in making and sharing art. AT encourages the development of new tools to observe and describe both internally and externally the process of learning and creating, and specifically moving beyond efficiency to creativity.  Conducting research entails framing a question, identifying appropriate methods to collect data and analyze it, providing answers on the basis of these data, that often lead to new questions and inquiries. Alexander teachers hold a unique set of skills that allow them to work with performers to enhance their skill and art and at the same time be involved with researching their practice.

Footnotes

[1] The full article was published in The Congress Papers, the 11th International Congress of the F.M. Alexander Technique, (20 July-4 August, 2018, Chicago, USA), edited by Paul Marsh, published by STAT Books, London, pp. 192-198

[2] A detailed discussion of the project and the analysis was published: Brandes, G.M., Condie, J, Wielinga A., (2020 February). Using Alexander Technique principles with Beginning Piano Students: A Collaborative “duet” between an Alexander Technique teacher and a piano teacher. Music Teachers National Association eJournal

References

Alexander, F.M., (1995). Articles and lectures, Mouritz, UK, The Bedford Lecture (1934). pp. 163-184

Alexander, F.M., (1932, 1997). The use of the self, IREAT, NY, p. 425.

Barenboim, D., & Said, E. W. (2004). Parallels and paradoxes: Explorations in music and society. Vintage.

Brandes, G.M., (2019). “Alexander Technique gives me space to create musically”: Musicians explore the application of Alexander Technique principles, Congress Papers- Advancing Global Perspectives. STAT Books: London, pp. 192-198

Brandes, G.M., Condie, J, Wielinga A., (2020 February). Using Alexander Technique principles with Beginning Piano Students: A Collaborative “duet” between an Alexander Technique teacher and a piano teacher. Music Teachers National Association eJournal

McGhee, L., (2019, Fall) Flute and the Alexander Technique, The Flutist Quarterly, pp 39-41

Member Contributions and Thanks

As always, we welcome your comments, suggestions and questions. Please use the Comment box below or email us at alexander.studies.online@gmail.com with any information, feedback, or questions. We will do our best to respond to you as soon as possible.

A special thanks to Dr. Gabriella Minnes Brandes, Jennifer Condie, and Erica Donnison for their contributions to this blog post. To all our community members who have contributed, thank-you! We are working hard to integrate all your thoughtful input and materials. Your written contributions, reference updates for the Zotero library, and words of support in all forms continue to be appreciated and inspire.

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